Vial of Tears

By: Madeline Erb

Vial of Tears is a vividly told young adult fantasy inspired by Phoenician mythology. Written by Cristin Bishara, the book is about the lengths sixteen-year-old Samira will go to in order to save her sister Rima after they are both transported to the Phoenician Underworld. The worldbuilding in this book is fascinating and deep and the characters are endearing.

When Sam’s grandfather Jiddo mails her an ancient vase with a burial coin inside it, the coin pulls both Sam and her sister Rima into the underworld. The girls are separated, and Sam must search for her sister in an unfamiliar world where she must face ghosts, a Shapeshifter, a God and her own possible involvement in a prophecy.

The worldbuilding of Vial of Tears was what impressed me the most. The world felt textured and real. I had never previously learned anything about this type of mythology, but I found myself absolutely engrossed by this book. I’ve often felt like writers of mythology-based series tend to retread a lot of the same Greek and Norse ground, but Bishara’s tale was a breath of fresh air.

The high point of this book is also its greatest flaw. As amazing as the world of Vial of Tears is, I sometimes felt that too much new information was being thrown at me at once. None of the details were boring, but I sometimes found myself floundering trying to put it all together. To be fair, our heroine Sam was doing the same, learning about the world around her as she journeyed through it.

While I enjoyed the relationships between Sam and her family a great deal, there was less to love about the relationships between Sam and the people of the underworld. There is a relationship with romantic undercurrents in this book, but I didn’t buy the romance at all. The two characters didn’t seem to connect in a way that went beyond friendship and understanding. The book worked best when it was driven by interfamily relationships – the relationship between Sam and her father, who is absent and presumed dead for the entire book, was particularly compelling.

There were points in the book where I found myself wishing the fast flow of information would slow down – perhaps even to split the story into two separate books so that things could be more fully explained. This is a standalone book, but there’s definitely enough meat in this universe for a sequel or even a series. Despite the few flaws I saw in the book, I’d definitely read something else set in this universe.

Vial of Tears by Cristin Bishara is now on sale from Holiday House.